


Yardwork

by lesbianophelia



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Minor Character Death, Modern AU, Neighbors!Everlark, birthday fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 14:50:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3138272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianophelia/pseuds/lesbianophelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katniss and Peeta as neighbors. Modern AU. A birthday gift for an excellent friend and fic writer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yardwork

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dracoisalooker76](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracoisalooker76/gifts).



When it comes down to it, a grand total of three people in the world love the Everdeen house as much as it deserves to be loved. Her father is at the top of the list – which is a given, considering that it was originally built by an Everdeen man, her father’s great-great-great grandfather, or something like that. He knows how far removed the relatives are, but she can never remember. He grew up with it as his grandparent’s house and, since his mother and father moved to the city and didn’t want the place, grew up knowing that it was coming to him.

 

To hear Mr. Everdeen tell it, his grandmother taught him how to garden out back while his grandfather worked, and whenever something needed to be fixed or replaced, they insisted on showing him how to do it. He never understood why, when he was a kid. But with his busy parents, he loved the chance to do something during the summers. Finally, after he finished holding the tools for his grandfather one day, the older man smiled, patted him on the shoulder, and said that he loved the house enough to be a great owner one day.

 

His grandparents passed away while he was in college, and, as an only child, there was no competition for the house. Not when his mother hated it as much as she did. When he came home from college, there were boxes of home improvement stuff waiting for him in the attic. Most everything else went to his mother, but those boxes had his name on them. (Literally or metaphorically, Katniss really doesn’t know, and at this point it would be embarrassing to ask.) So before he proposed to her mother, he got to work on the house. Made sure that it was in the best shape it could be for him to bring his wife home to after they were married.

 

Katniss’ mother usually interjected at this point in the story. Said that she was _waiting_ for a ring that it didn’t seem like she was going to have, and that her parents tried to get her to light a fire underneath the young Mr. Everdeen, but she refused. She would have moved into the house while it was still a construction zone, she claims. _“I would have married you even if you didn’t have a house to bring me home to,”_ she says sometimes, and they give each other a look so filled with love that Katniss has to look away, because she feels like such an outsider.

 

The next person on the list is Katniss. She’s been helping her father – with little things, holding ladders while he changed the lightbulbs and passing screwdrivers over – since before her sister was born. And though as Prim has gotten older she’s cracked jokes about fighting Katniss for the house, everyone who knows them knows that Prim will probably live in some fancy apartment upstate and Katniss will stay in the house and love it as fiercely as her father always has.

 

And the third person on the list, surprisingly enough, is Peeta Mellark. She thinks it has more to do with the subdivision that popped up around the Everdeens than the house itself. Because the single good thing that _Merchant Quarter_ has done – other than bringing Peeta Mellark into her life – is making the blond boy hate the identical houses.

 

The cluster of houses that sprang up isn’t called a subdivision, exactly.  It’s called the _Merchant Quarter,_ and it’s pretentious and ridiculous and Katniss hates it about as much as the people in the property owner association hate her family’s house. Every year, when the board offers to buy the house out from underneath them, her mother asks her father to consider it. And every year, when the board offers to buy the house out from underneath them, her father says no.

 

“This house was here before _Merchant Quarter_ ,” he likes to say, “and it’ll be here after.”

 

But they don’t _fit in_. And Katniss half suspects that her mother thinks that they would fit in more somewhere exactly like _Merchant Quarter_. In a house without character. She won’t say so, of course. Just gives Mr. Everdeen quiet little guilt trips about how nice the money would be to have to send the girls to college. Her father, thankfully, doesn’t budge. Says that there’s no way that they’ll give them what the house is worth, and that the house is staying in the family.

 

Peeta’s family, unlike hers, fits in perfectly. So she’s not sure why he spends so much time at her house when his is right next door.

 

She meets him the day his family moves in next door. He looks younger than he is with his curly blond hair flopping in his eyes and a huge box in his arms that he’s clearly struggling to see over. Her father – even though he’s supposed to be showing her how to tell what is and isn’t a weed – sees him and takes pity on him, offering to take the box in for him.

 

“Oh, no, I’ve got it,” the boy says. His eyes sort of lock on Katniss, where she’s standing behind her father. She feels strangely shy. Like she ought to hide behind her father, even though she generally doesn’t try doing that. “Thank you, though.”

 

“No problem,” Mr. Everdeen says. “What’s your name, boy?”

 

“Peeta, sir,” he answers. “My family is moving in today.” He jerks his head over towards the house. It’s one of the identical ones. Katniss wants to dislike him on principal. The construction noise has kept her up enough nights. “I probably should get back.”

 

Her father lets him go, but not before he invites him to Katniss’ birthday party the next week. She’s mad about that. She can’t help it. All she wanted for her tenth birthday was for Gale and Madge to come over, but her mother has already insisted on inviting the whole class, and even though she wants to pick a fight over Peeta coming, she knows better. Knows that her father will use sound reasoning against her and tell her that she ought to want to be nice to the boy. Maybe she’ll get a new friend out of it. Only, she doesn’t _want_ a new friend. She wants the friends that she _has_.

 

The boy – _Peeta_ – and his father come to the party that Friday. And while the other kids are running around in the back yard, she hides out in the treehouse. She doesn’t know anyone, really. And they all like each other better than they like her. Even Gale and Madge – both a couple of years older than her – are interested in each other and not in anything Katniss has to say.

 

“Katniss?” Peeta asks softly, climbing up into the treehouse. He has to clear a few toys out of the way to find a place to sit. Prim’s things. The treehouse will be _hers_ soon enough. That’s another stupid thing about turning ten. It means that Prim will be six soon, and old enough to come up here alone before she even knows it. “Do you mind if I sit here?” he asks.

 

She shrugs. She does sort of mind.

 

“Been looking for you,” he says gently, holding a carefully wrapped gift out to her. “This is . . . for you.”

 

“Thanks,” she says. “My parents will wait to make me open it, though.”

 

He frowns. “But I’m giving it to you _now_.”

 

“What is it?” she asks.

 

He seems to have to debate with himself for a moment, and then he leans in a little closer. “It’s a book. My favorite book in the world.”

 

She hears his father, Mr. Mellark, talking to her parents just below. She hears ugly words like _divorce_ and _custody agreement_ , words that are foreign to her but that make him flinch. Peeta has been looking forward to this all week, apparently. He’s going to start at her school on Monday, and even though he had all kinds of friends at his old school, he’s afraid of not being able to make any here.

 

She already has the book, it turns out when she opens it, but she doesn’t tell him that. She thanks him, instead. Makes him think she read it over the weekend when they see each other in school that Monday, because she never really gets tired of talking about the book, and also because she feels bad for him.

 

Even though she definitely shouldn’t. He’s outgoing and kind and makes friends with nearly everyone within days of joining her class. But though he makes friends easily, he doesn’t let go of Katniss in the years that come. She appreciates that more than she thought she would.

 

\--

 

Her boyfriend doesn’t like Peeta. Gets frustrated at Katniss when she dares to bring him up. Accuses her of _liking_ him. And Katniss always rolls her eyes and puts her hand on Mitchell’s arm and says, “I’m dating _you_ , aren’t I?” but it never seems to be enough.

 

The truth is, though, that she can’t say that she doesn’t like her neighbor. Not when he’s the first boy she ever noticed. And the first boy her age that has been so uncompromisingly kind to her. He does seem more than a little disappointed, though, when she cancels their standing tradition of a movie night for the third time in a row.

 

Her mother and father sit her down for a horrible, uncomfortable conversation, then, about how _concerning_ it is for her to let her boyfriend take her friend’s place. And how long has it even been since she’s seen Madge? Or Johanna?

 

Katniss thinks it’s annoying. Especially since Peeta seems to feel the same way, which means that he and her father definitely talk about her when she’s not around. It’s ridiculous. All of it is ridiculous.

 

And yet, after yet another fight with Mitchell about how he thinks she’s _sketchy_ and _obviously in love with Peeta_ – something she’s not sure has anything to do with their argument, because all she wanted to know was why Cecilia Donovan had a contact photo in his phone and she didn’t. But she and Peeta sit in the treehouse that’s become something of shared property between the two of them over the years, and when she says, “I think Mitchell is cheating on me,” he responds with what must be the worst thing he could say in that moment.

 

“I know.”

 

“ _What_?”

 

“I mean – we all know,” he says.

 

“And you didn’t think it was worth mentioning?”

 

“What would we say?” he asks, pulling his knees up to his chest. “We never even _see_ you anymore. It’s not like, on one of the, like, _four_ times we’ve seen you since you started dating, Delly could have just said _hey, by the way, Katniss, your boyfriend is a piece of shit_.”

 

“This isn’t about Delly.” She doesn’t even _like_ Delly. Barely even knows her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

 

“What would I have said, Katniss?” he asks. “Would you have even believed me? I’ve been – look. I probably shouldn’t have kept it from you. But the guy is trouble –”

 

“ _Probably_?” she asks, her voice rising. “You _probably_ shouldn’t have kept it from me?”

 

“You’re not hearing me –”

 

“You don’t understand,” she says. “You don’t know him. You don’t even – you haven’t even _tried_ to get to know him! And you’re going to try and tell me that he’s _trouble_?” she asks. “No. I don’t – I don’t . . .”

 

She trails off when she notices that he’s moving. _He can’t leave_. Only, he doesn’t leave. He just moves a little closer, tucks a piece of her hair behind her ear, and clears his throat. “All I’m saying, Katniss, is that you deserve better than this guy.”

 

She swallows hard. “What do I deserve, Peeta? A friend who –” _would lie to me? Who doesn’t care enough to make sure that I know if my boyfriend is cheating on me_? _What about one who would chase after me if he thought my boyfriend was so shitty? Or who realized what’s been right in front of his eyes all this time?_ A million moments  surge through her, but then, suddenly, Peeta is so close that she can feel his breath on her face. His lips are _so close_ , suddenly, pink and soft looking and igniting something of a fire in her belly.

 

“ _More_ ,” he whispers. “You deserve more.”

 

“More?” she returns, and she means to sound angry, or defensive. Or like a good girlfriend who knows Mitchell is giving her all that she needs. But her voice is shaky and disbelieving.   
  
“So much more,” Peeta says. “You deserve everything.”   
  
“Ev- everything?”   
  
He nods again, and before she can help herself, she’s tilting her head forward. _I’m going to kiss Peeta_ , she thinks, but Peeta pulls back just before their lips can meet. “You have a boyfriend.”   
  
Oh. Her mouth opens and closes a few times. “I have a boyfriend,” she repeats, mortified that Peeta would turn her down. _Again_. How many times has she given him the opportunity? How many more times will she allow him to make her feel so . . . so undesirable?   
  
“Katniss,” he says softly, but she doesn’t respond. The muscles in his jaw are clenched when she looks at him. His lip twitching. “I won’t tell him about this if you don’t.”   
  
“I should go,” she whispers, thinking of the time she and Johanna sat out in the back yard in their swimsuits, sunbathing while her father and Peeta mowed the lawn. Peeta had come over to steal a swig from her water bottle and nearly choked. But he didn’t do anything. And it wasn’t too long after that that Mitchell asked her out. Mitchell, who is flawed and always busy with school -- and other girls -- but who tells her that she’s pretty when he takes her out on dates. Even if he spends the rest of the time on his phone, texting back and forth with Cecelia fucking Donovan under the table, like he thinks she doesn’t know.   
  
Maybe she’s just not the girlfriend type.   
  
“I’ll see you later?” Peeta asks, but he doesn’t even bother to sound hopeful. She decides to try to hate him.   
  
Working on the house had been _her_ thing with her father. But not long after the Mellarks moved in, Peeta started hanging out around the house, and while his father and his brothers worked weekends, he was left at home. After clearing it with Mr. Mellark, her father started to invite Peeta along while they did things like cleaning out the garage and raking the yard. And while she always knew that her father wanted a son, there’s something more and more irritating about the fact that he seems to have found it in Peeta as she gets older.

  
So it should be easy, staying mad at him. At least, she hopes it will.   
\--  
  
It’s a heart attack that kills her father. One minute, he was fine. But the next, the guys at work were calling him an ambulance. Her mother was working when he was brought into the hospital, but even with the best help they had to offer, he didn’t make it. The doctors told her weeping mother that this _couldn’t_ have been the first incident, and that maybe he didn’t know.   
  
It runs in his family, after all. Heart attacks.   
  
\--   
  
Every time a knock at the door comes, she half expects and half hopes for it to be Peeta. Gale’s mother brings a casserole, though they haven’t spoken since before Gale went away to college. She hugs her tightly and asks after Mrs. Everdeen. Katniss answers honestly. That she’s sad but that it isn’t the worst cycle her mother has gone through, as far as her depression goes. That she seems to be holding it together for Prim’s sake.  

  
The Undersees want to know, when they bring baked spaghetti, whether or not they’ll be having a ceremony. It’s the first time her mother answers the door.   
  
Peeta doesn’t come. Not those first few days. She tries to pretend that she’s glad. Hadn’t she decided, just after she broke up with Mitchell that she wanted nothing to do with Peeta? Mitchell had yelled and called her nasty, nasty things that made Katniss think of Peeta saying he was horrible and that he was right, as much as she hated to admit it, but she still didn’t respond to his text messages. Not until they stopped coming. But she does miss him. So much that it hurts that it was his father, and not him, who brought by a couple of loaves of bread.

  
\--   
  


Katniss wakes from a nap on the couch to the sound of a lawn mower. She hides behind her curtains, almost afraid to peek out. Almost afraid of what she’s going to see.

It’s Peeta. Even from the window, she can see how hot he is out in the sun. In the height of the afternoon, there’s no way he wouldn’t be. He should be inside, somewhere. Instead, he’s just using the push mower her father so preferred.

 

She wants to scream at him. Wants to force her window up and remind him not to be stupid. That Mr. Everdeen is _dead_ , and in the grand scheme of things, does it really matter that much if the lawn gets mowed? Her eyes fall on a cluster of dandelions by the mailbox, and before she’s even really sure what she’s doing, she’s heading out into the yard in her sleeping shorts and tank top. She barely even remembered to throw some flip flops on. But she understands what must have run through Peeta’s mind, because it seems so wrong for weeds to be in this yard, even considering everything that’s happened to the man who usually handles the weeding.

 

She tugs the dandelions out, trying to get the roots too. She actually manages to work uninterrupted for a moment, but then the sound from the mower stops, and she hears Peeta’s heavy footsteps coming towards her. She tenses, not wanting to talk.

 

He doesn’t expect her to talk, though. He just kneels beside her and reaches out to take her left hand. She wants to pull away. Or . . . she wants to _want_ to pull away. But she doesn’t. She just continues her work one handed, ridding the spot of all of the dandelions she can. He works, too, silent and steady. As he always has.

 

She even manages not to cry.

 

She lingers a moment too long before she stands up and wipes her hands on her thighs even though it leaves dirt on her skin. It’s probably just as close for him to go back to his own house, but she offers anyway. “Um, if you want something to drink,” she nods towards the house.

 

He nods. “Yes, please. Thank you.”

 

He follows her into the house. She’s not sure why she feels like she needs to be quiet, but she creeps through the door and into the kitchen. Even Peeta’s usually loud footsteps are a little bit more silent. They don’t speak, at first. She gets him a glass of water and leans back against the counter, watching him while he drinks it.

 

He looks about as exhausted as she feels.

 

“Thank you. For getting the grass. I just . . .”

 

“Yeah, of course,” he says when he realizes that she isn’t going to finish. “I was a little afraid you were going to yell at me when you came out.” He gives her a shy smile.

 

“Mitchell and I broke up,” she announces.  It seems like something that needs to be said. Especially because she doesn’t want to talk about her father. His eyebrows raise, and mostly because she feels like he’s going to go hunt the guy down and kill him, she continues. “It was . . . it was _before_.”

 

“Oh,” he says, blowing some of his hair away from his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

 

“Thought it’d make you happy,” she ventures. This is good, talking to Peeta like nothing has changed. Maybe she can handle this.

 

“I’m not – why would I be _happy_?” Peeta asks. “You’re sad. That could never make me happy.”

 

She doesn’t have a response. She just stares at him for a long moment. “Do you want something to eat?” she asks.

 

She doesn’t wait for an answer. She pulls out one of the Tupperware containers someone brought over and tosses it to him. “Undersee,” Peeta reads from the top of the container. “Is this Mrs. Undersee’s famous spaghetti?”

 

She shrugs. She’s gone through plenty of sympathy food with Prim over the last few days. It’s as if the neighbors anticipated that Mrs. Everdeen would retreat into herself the way that she did when Katniss’ grandmother passed away. As if they knew how terrible Katniss is at cooking and didn’t want to have Prim go through that. Her mother has been spending too much time at work, though. She thinks it’s a coping mechanism. But she still resents her for it.

 

“Yep,” Peeta says, once he’s opened the spaghetti, crossing to the microwave. It’s almost strange, how comfortable he seems, here. She finds herself thinking about the time he must have spent in here with her father and then has to make herself stop. “Do you have a jar of sauce?” he asks. “She’s notoriously stingy.”

 

“Probably,” she answers, stretching up on her tiptoes to get the sauce. Prim comes out while Peeta is doctoring the noodles.

 

“Spaghetti for breakfast?” she asks skeptically.

 

“We’re out of cereal,” Katniss returns. “Mom might bring some home after work. Just text her and hope, I guess.”

 

“I’ll bring you to the store,” Peeta says. Then he rakes a hand through his hair. “Um, if you wanted to go, that is. I don’t mean to overstep my bounds, here.”

 

“No, that would be nice,” Katniss says. “If you’re sure you wouldn’t mind.”

 

“Not at all,” he says. “I’ll have to get changed first, but if you want to get going after we eat, that shouldn’t hold us up for very long.”

 

“Okay,” she says.

They all load into his father’s car. Katniss sits up front with Peeta, and Prim sits in the back seat even though she called shotgun.

 

It’s quiet. He finally mentions that she can turn the radio on, if she wants. So she does. The money is heavy in her pocket. She doesn’t like it, being the one in charge of this. In charge of groceries. It’s better, though, Peeta coming with them, if only because she thinks that he actually manages to ward off a few well meaning strangers and their sympathy.

 

\--

 

After the trip to the store, she and Peeta grow back together. Resuming the easy routine that they had before she and Mitchell started dating. She waits for him to bring home a girlfriend, but he never does. He jokes when Prim asks about his girlfriend that the Everdeen girls are the only ones he wants in his life right now.

 

They do end up kissing in the treehouse one night. It's late and so cold that he offers to zip his jacket up around the both of them.

 

“Would you have let me kiss you if I wasn't dating him?” she asks suddenly.

 

His head snaps up from the etch-a-sketch he's been working with so suddenly that it's almost comical. “What?”

 

“I think about it a lot. Um. Too much.”

 

“So then I'm not the only one,” he says with a little smile. “I wished you weren't seeing him. Or that I could live with myself for being the reason you broke up with him. I was afraid I only saw the problems because of how badly I wished I was the one you were so crazy about. I think about it so much. And you know what else I think about?”

 

She shakes her head. He presses a kiss to her lips, soft and hesitant and completely unlike any of the kisses between her and Mitchell. Those were forceful and slobbery and almost always unpleasant.

 

“Is that okay?” he asks.

 

“That you think about it?” she jokes.“Yes. Of course.”  
  
They spend the rest of their rendezvous that night -- and several nights afterwards -- kissing.

  
\--

 

Maybe it was always right for Peeta to end up living in the Everdeen house. Though one day when she says so, and he asks why, he laughs at the thought of him just honestly loving the yardwork as much as she always thought he did.

 

“Maybe it wasn't the house I loved,” he says softly.

  
She leans her head against his chest, looking over the clutter of boxes around them. “Maybe not,” she agrees. “But you married into it. I'm not gonna let you slack on the yardwork now.”  

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully this wasn't too sad for a birthday fic!! I tried to keep it light but you told me once you didn't mind a little angst. So, this was the result! Neighbors!Everlark at long, long last. Happy birthday <3


End file.
